April 25, 2008
It’s Tana Ramsey week, this week in our house. I’ve been trying to inject some enthusiasm into creating our meals ever since Mr. P figured out that I’ll be dishing up 17,500 family meals over the next say, 16 years.
So, I’ve been cooking from different recipe books from the library and borrowed from friends. So, we’ve had Nigella week, a few Jamie weeks, a retro Linda McCartney week – loved the 80s fashion and food styling photos in that book, Lorraine Kelly week, quite a few Annabel Karmel weeks and as for Hugh Fearnley – well he pops up all over the place. My criteria for a tip-top cookbook is not so much that it has to have recipes for wholesome family food that’s really quick to prepare, but that it has loads of mouth-watering pictures. No pictures. No go. I’m even down-hearted now if there’s only a picture every other page.
Now I’m regularly photographing with a macro lens, everything that comes out of the oven, have I lost the plot? Many of my nearest and dearest think so. But there’s a very rational reason behind all this snapping and blogging. I am embracing my “stay at home mum” status by taking pride and a creative approach to what I’m doing. OK, so I’m often taking photographs of sheep aswell but I think that’s a different matter (Mr. P said today he thinks I should be or have been a shepherdess in a former life!). I’d really like to create a collection of recipes, illustrated with photos, to hand down through the generations.
The first 2 Tana days have been a major success. Tuna steaks with gorgeous oven-baked cherry tomatoes – a big hit yesterday. And today, Mr. P said that the Bakewell slice was and I proudly quote “the best pudding I have ever had”. Wow! And we all thought it was Gordon Ramsey who was effing brilliant with food.


April 26, 2008 at 11:02 am
I remember printing recipes from the interweb thingy and put them in a folder but you know what I never cooked from them and now I know why, they were just words…the old picture is worth a thousand words is true after all.You should go to Hay on Wye there used to be a bookshop there specialising in oookbooks…it must be on the web somewhere. try:
http://www.hayonwyebooksellers.com/category25_1.aspx
April 26, 2008 at 11:04 am
ps the food photos olook yummy
April 26, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Hi Chris. Thanks for the compliments and the hay on wye tip. Will check it out. Why not cook your neglected recipes and photograph the results! Hey, we could even twin up our blogs and stage a cook-&-snap-off!
April 30, 2008 at 7:27 pm
I love your idea of a weekly cookbook. Did you do something every night from each cookbook, or just a couple of things during the week? Sounds like lots of fun, and an amazing way to spend lots of money. I love recipes too. Some people never use recipes, but I love them. This year I have bought a calendar which has a recipe for each month, and I make sure I cook each month’s recipe at least once during the month, but I really could do with one for each week. I just turned the page to May today, and this month’s special is Watercress Salad. I hope it’s more filling than it sounds…
April 30, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Hiya J! I’ll try and do 4 or 5 new recipes a week (sounds quite alot but one might only be a new way of roasting tomatoes or something!).
I try and plan the week’s menu and do a shopping list so it actually works out cheaper if I know which ingredients I’m buying instead of guessing and throwing too much stuff in the trolley!
Hope your watercress salad turns out nice - hoping it includes lots of tummy-filling carbs!